Dr. Yair Auron Analyzes Jewish Response to the
Armenian Genocide Through New Research

By Barlow Der Mugrdechian

Hye Sharzhoom Advisor

Dr. Yair Auron, senior lecturer at The
Open University of Israel and the Kibbutzim College of Education, was the guest
of the Armenian Studies Program as part of its Fall Lecture Series on Wednesday,
November 15. The presentation was held in the new Smittcamp Alumni House.

The purpose of his talk, "The
Banality of Indifference: Attitudes of the Jewish ‘Yishuv,’ the Zionist
Movement, and the State of the Israel towards the Armenian Genocide," was
to summarize and analyze the positions of the Jewish Yishuv (the Jewish
community of Palestine prior to the establishment of the State of Israel), the
Zionists and also the position of the Israeli government toward the massacres
committed by the Turkish government against the Armenians during the First World
War.

In
his research, Auron utilized never before published documents and eye-witness
accounts from World War I. These now have been published as part of his latest
400 page book, The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the Armenian Genocide,
(Transaction Publishers, 2000). Composed of ten chapters, the book opens new
grounds for research on the Armenian Genocide and reveals the feelings and
attitudes of Jews towards the Genocide.

According to Auron, his book raises
"theoretical and philosophical questions, particularly in the introduction
and final two chapters, which relate directly and indirectly to the specific
subject of our research: the debate over the concept of genocide and the
uniqueness of the Holocaust in comparison to other instances of genocide,
including the Armenian Genocide."

During his talk, Auron specifically
addressed a series of questions on the Armenian Genocide that he called
"difficult and delicate." These included: 1) Who perpetrated the
Genocide of the Armenians? 2) Who knew about it? and 3) What was the role of the
Germans?

He also compared the similar
characteristics of the Jews and Armenians, in particular noting the fates of the
two peoples. But he also pointed out that the Jews succeeded in surviving the
rule of the Ottomans in Palestine, while the Armenians suffered a Genocide.

His research is the result of his own
ongoing effort, in his own words, to "examine a subject that has been
repressed and ignored in the Israeli historical and collective memory, as well
as in the collective memory of the world."

"I was troubled by a sense of
oppressive discomfort and criticism of the evasive behavior, verging on denial,
of the various governments of Israel regarding the memory of the Armenian
genocide," Auron said.

On the eve of World War I, there were some
85,000 Jews out of a population of 700,000 in the area of Palestine (Eretz
Yisrael) west of the Jordan river. Half of the Jews were part of the "Old
Yishuv" and half were part of the "New Yishuv," immigrants who
had arrived at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the
twentieth.

According to Auron, "Yishuv knew
about the fate of the Armenians, and feared a similar fate." The evidence
suggests that they knew what was happening to the Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire. Mordecai Ben-Hillel Hacohen, a Jewish journalist in the Yishuv, reported
on the chain of events affecting the Armenians of the Ottoman Empire as early as
1916.

Aaron Aaronhnson, a high official in the
local Ottoman administration and the leader of the Nili spy group, was also
aware of reports by US Ambassador Henry Morgenthau as well as the compilation
work by James Bryce and Arnold Toynbee regarding the fate of the Armenians.

Auron devotes a significant chapter is his
book to "The Forty Days of Musa Dagh: Symbol and Parable." Franz
Werfel’s novel influenced many young people who grew up in Palestine in the
1930s.

"For many Jewish youth in Europe, ‘Musa
Dagh’ became a symbol, a model, and an example, especially during the dark
days of the Second World War," Auron said. "Jews in particular have
lauded Werfel’s book and have sometimes emphasized the author’s Jewishness
claiming that ‘only a Jew could have written this work.’"

"Recognizing the Armenian Genocide is
of a major historical, moral and educational significance." He added that
such recognition is essential "for the non-recurrence of similar instances
in the future," Auron said.

He described the attitude of the various
Israeli governments to the Armenian Genocide as "characterized by
evasiveness and denial."

"The State of Israel has officially
refrained from relating the Genocide. A combination of factors connected with
Israel’s relations with Turkey and concepts of the uniqueness of the Shoah
[Holocaust] have brought about an almost total absence of any mentioning of the
Armenian Genocide on state television," he said.

There are members of the Israeli
government, such as Justice Minister Yossi Beilin, who share Auron’s feeling
that it is a moral imperative for Israelis to be more aware of and sensitive to
other occurrences of genocide.

Auron went on to say that he believed it
essential to "develop a greater sensitivity among our youth to the
suffering of others and to strengthen universal, humanistic values which are an
integral part of the Jewish tradition." In this regard, he noted the
statement of Israeli’s Minister of Education Yossi Sarid at an April 24, 2000
memorial gathering of the Armenian community in Jerusalem which concluded with a
commitment to ensure that the Armenian Genocide be included in the Israeli
secondary school history curriculum.

Dr. Auron’s has been touring North America to promote
the publication of his book, The Banality of Indifference: Zionism and the
Armenian Genocide, whose translation from Hebrew into English was sponsored by
the Zoryan Institute. The book was described as "pioneering research"
by the former prime minister of Israel Shimon Peres.